Wonder of Long Ago
by AlumLniaa
Summary: Care for the young prince, for he is the hope of your clan.


**Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist**

**Note: This is inspired by the FanFic ****Fate**** written by ****pyrat-xo ****, from RanFans point of view**

**Warning: spoilers through chapter 100**

You stand in front of the young prince; the one the Yao clan is hoping will become Emperor one day. You have just been told that from here on out he is your responsibility, you must protect him and even be willing to die for him, you don't think he will be able to become emperor, he daydreams too much and has his head in the clouds.

Protecting his young highness is harder than you anticipated. There haven't been any assassination attacks, _yet, _but he keeps sneaking off grounds forcing you to follow him as he stops at every restaurant and stuffs his face full of food the people give him for free, as if though he didn't have a penny and he should be pitied.

Grandfather has informed you that it is time for the young master to learn to fight and you are to spar with him regularly, you act as if though you just do it as grandfathers order but in reality your secretly find it satisfying to hit his squinty eyed face. He never complains however and doesn't act like regular royalty that would start to cry when hit in the face, instead he asks you how he can both block and strike at the same time. Without realizing it you begin to gain respect for the young prince.

Gradually the prince becomes a proficient fighter, able to block your attacks and sometimes return with some of his own. Grandfather then says that the young prince must learn to read auras, that task is also turned unto you. Unlike sparring, it isn't easy to get the prince to meditate; he cannot stay still for more than five minutes. When he finally manages to sit down for any quantity of time he cannot find the aura of anyone, no one but you. Maybe that isn't such a bad thing.

The first assassination attack takes place during a meditation session, you are concentrating on teaching the prince how to distinguish the aura of different animal so you don't notice the noiseless rustle of the leaves as a poison-tipped dart fly's thought them until it almost hits him. You try to block it with your kunai but overshoot and the dart hits your arm, letting a purple liquid into your bloodstream that burns as it tears thought the thick fabric of your sleeve and then your skin. You instantly feel disoriented as seven figures jump from surrounding trees and begin to attack. You try to stay in the battle and even land a blow to one of them successfully knocking them out before the poison really kicks in making you fall to the ground. You can only watch as the young master takes them down using the martial arts that you taught him. Most would restrain the people that had just tried to kill them, but the young princes leaves the assassins on the ground as he picks you up and rushes you to the hospital.

You are still recovering from the poison when the subject of the concubines comes up, it was just slipped in during a casual conversation, but somehow you can't stop thinking about them. The thought that the young prince may one day have fifty wives makes you hate yourself when you sometimes find yourself wishing he won't become emperor for that reason. You admitted long ago to yourself that you had fallen for him.

The current emperor has fallen ill and all his children are seeking away to win his favor before he passes, the young prince included. Assassination attacks have stopped as every clan struggles to present something to make the emperor grant them power over the land.

Immortality, what more to impress a dying man, but where to find it. The philosophers' stone is said to be in the far off country of Amestris. Amestris is across the deadly desert, when the young prince asks you to accompany him, you only have one answer.

Crossing the desert was hell, but more hell was to follow after crossing the Amestrian border. It is a strange country filled with strange people and stranger enemies. Beings that seem to be made of thousands of souls, that shift shaped and that never seem to die, immortal in other words.

A battle begins to commence with these creatures, but before it begins a sword is being swung towards you, you block most of the impact with your kunai, stopping it from immediately killing you, but it hits full force on your arm. You black out for a few minutes, when you come to you are being carried though an ally by the young prince, you realize that your left arm isn't moving. You plead with the prince to leave you and run, for the sake of the Yao clan, he refuses. You do the only thing you can think of, you bite down on your collar as you tighten your grip on your kunai and bring it down on your shoulder.

You walk thought the sewers, trying to staunch the bleeding from your stump of a shoulder, until the young prince comes to get you, homunculus in tow, from relief and blood loss, you collapse. You wake up in a rundown shack, while a doctor is operating on your shoulder, trying to keep you alive. Suddenly something shakes the shack, you are told that the captured homunculus is on a rampage, you are put in a car and begins to cry as you realize the prince stayed behind.

You wake up in the house of the doctor who operated on your shoulder and try to get up, to get back to your prince. The doctor calls you a fool and makes you look at your arm, makes you admit that it's really gone. You spend days in this house, wallowing in depression over the prospect that you may never fight, never protect his young highness again. A needle spills nutrients into your bloodstream, you wish it was the poison from long ago.

You are told that the prince has become a homunculus, that he has gained immortality, you don't know how to feel, but you know he is alive and that is reason enough to continue fighting. Your grandfather returns and you leave with him to get a replacement arm, a thing called automail, you have been told that the procedure for obtaining a replacement limb is pain beyond hell, you see this prosthetic as hope to live for tomorrow.

The automail operation was excruciatingly painful and you cut your rehabilitation time from three years to six months. You find the prince again only to find he is still Greed, regardless you worry when he disappears again. You follow a small group of allies to Central but are granted permission to search for the prince.

You arrive at the battlefield just as your grandfather falls and watch as the young prince battles the man who cut off your arm; he has tears in his eyes.

The man who killed your grandfather falls, and you watch as the young prince desperately tries to find a way to help you grandfather, you watch as he realizes he can't and more tears fall. He thought he could gain immortality for all.

The young Prince asks for power and you watch as the he becomes covered in armor and as he takes down an oncoming army, you wonder if that is really the young man with his head in the clouds from long ago.


End file.
